Wednesday, 25 March 2015

CAN E-GOVERNANCE REALLY FIGHT CORRUPTION? #DigitalIndia

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his maiden Independence Day
speech on August 15, 2014 envisaged a ₹1 lakh crore project to transform the
country into a digitally empowered and connected knowledge economy. The digital
India programmeis an umbrella
initiative with the unique vision
oftransformingIndiainto a digitally empowered societyfree from red-tapism, corruption, nepotism etc. For thisdigital transformation to be completed it is
imperative that the government and the corporate work in tandem in creating a
sustainable model for e governancefor
which digital education is essential. And US chipmaker Intel, a world leader in
innovative computing has come forward to support this cause so as to enable
Indians to harness the benefits of this digital revolution. Intel India will
also work with Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL) to build capacity by
imparting digital literacy training to key resource persons in the first 1000
panchayats under the National Optic Fibre Network roll-out in India.

One of the major problems the Indian
society faces today is the deep rooted corruption in public life. The entire
government machinery is a citadel of corrupt practices and the common man feels
suffocated as he fails to protect his legitimate rights without bribing.
Corruption has become a way of life in India today. One of the major objectives
of E governance and digital India is to minimize (if not eradicate) corruption
in public life. But will it really translate into reality? I doubt. Let me delineate
what I mean by taking a real life example.

I applied for my passport online and
deposited the documents in Regional Passport Office, Bhubaneswar. I was in a
small town in Western Odisha at that time where my Police verification was
supposed to be done. The Inspector Incharge of the Police Station happened to
know me personally and he called me over phone to the PS to sign the necessary
verification papers. I reached his office and did the needful. When I came out
of the PS one constable called me, “Sir, Your papers will be sent today itself,
but…..”. “But what?” I asked. I could sense his gestures but pretended not to
understand anything. Finally he spelled out, “Something for our chai, pani……”.
I looked at the IIC who fought sigh of me. I handed over two hundred rupee
notes to the constable and he was happy.

Two years later my son applied for his
passport in Delhi, again online. The Police came to his place of residence to
verify and got his signature on the relevant papers. Then they demanded ₹500/-
as verification fees which my son gave fearing that they might not send his
verification report in time. Considering the prevalent situation in our present
day society his fear was not baseless.

Now on both the above occasions the
digital e governance was at work. Still the bribing (read tipping) could not be
avoided. Neither my son nor I had any intension to bribe the police. But we
were compelled to tip them. Can this sort of corruption be eradicated from the
society by any amount of digitization? I am afraid it can’t be. Unless public
servants and corporate houses learn the value of ethics and morality corruption
cannot be done away with. Our political leaders who are supposed to be peoples’
representatives are the most corrupted lot and corruption trickles down from
the top. If our Rulers do not stop embezzling public money no amount of digitization
can ever be successful in this country.

The need of the hour is to educate
our politicians with the right dose of moral and ethical values. Can Intel with
some technological innovation help us in attaining this objective for creating
a corruption free India?

For more details on Intel’s
initiative in digital India vision follow the link below: